In Line Behind a Billion People: How Scarcity Will Define China's Ascent in the Next Decade

Description

Nearly everything you know about China is wrong! Yes, within a decade, China will have the world’s largest economy. But that is the least important thing to know about China. In this enlightening book, two of the world’s leading China experts turn the conventional wisdom on its head, showing why China’s economic growth will constrain rather than empower it. Pioneering political analyst Damien Ma and global economist Bill Adams reveal why, having 35 years of ferocious economic growth, China’s future will be shaped by the same fundamental reality that has shaped it for millennia: scarcity. Ma and Adams drill deep into Chinese society, illuminating all the scarcities that will limit its power and progress. Beyond scarcities of natural resources and public goods, they illuminate China’s persistent poverties of individual freedoms, cultural appeal, and ideological legitimacy — and the corrosive loss of values and beliefs amongst a growing middle class shackled by a parochial and inflexible political system. Everyone knows “the 21st century is China’s to lose” — but, as with so many things that “everyone knows,” that’s just wrong. Ma and Adams get beyond cheerleading and fearmongering to tell the complex truth about China today. This is a truth you need to hear — whether you’re an investor, business decision-maker, policymaker, or citizen.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Economic scarcity 6

1. Resources: While supplies last 6

2. Food: Malthus on the Yangtze 6

3. Labor: Where did all the migrants go? 7

Social scarcity 7

4. Welfare: Socialism with Chinese .actually no, not socialism at all 7

5. Education: Give me equality but not until after my son gets into Tsinghua 7

6. Housing: Home is where the wallet is 8

Political scarcity 8

7. Ideology: The unbearable lightness of the Yellow River Spirit 8

8. Values: What would Confucius do? 9

9. Freedom: Keep on rockin’ in the firewalled world 9

Part I Economic Scarcity 13

Chapter 1 Resources: While supplies last 15

The Panda Boom 19

It’s the CPI, stupid 20

Smashing the iron rice bowl 22

Under the mattress: Savings gluttony 24

The world ain’t so flat, or, good neighbors near and far 26

Bamboo consumption continued 28

Land: So much yet so little 29

Ownership society with Chinese characteristics 30

Legacy problems 32

Energy: From industry to transport and residential 34

Import dependence as Achilles’ heel 39

Water 41

Thirsty industry 42

H2O politics 46

Chapter 2 Food: Malthus on the Yangtze 49

Feeding one-fifth of humanity 53

A diet for a land of plenty 56

The meat of the problem 56

Hot and bothered .and thirsty 61

Rise of the machines? 63

From Happy Meals to deadly dinners 66

Astronauts get Tang, taikonauts get grass-fed beef 69

Chapter 3 Labor: Where did all the migrants go? 75

Socialist employers’ paradise 77

...Becomes socialist employers’ paradise, lost 80

Migrants came, saw, and some are saying see ya later 81

Westward they go 84

Workers with attitude 87

Warmer, cuddlier policy for migrants 88

School of hard knocks 90

What happens when your key economic input shrinks? 91

Cashing out on the demographic dividend: an “uh oh” moment? 93

Public policy: A dash of creativity and wisdom needed 94

When 150 million workers unite 97

Part II Social Scarcity 99

Chapter 4 Welfare: Socialism with Chinese actually no, not socialism at all 101

Dismantling the welfare system 104

...And stitching it back together 112

From youth bulge to geriatric bulge 117

Mo’ bling, mo’ honeys 125

Serving the people 128

Chapter 5 Education: Give me equality but not until after my son gets into Tsinghua 131

A thought experiment: Turkmenbashi for a day 131

No, seriously, there is a real thing called urban bias 132

The social equalizer that isn’t 135

From urban bias to urban household bias 142

Turn on, tune in, and study abroad: Life at the top 144

Running out of levers to pull 147

Chapter 6 Housing: Home is where the wallet is 151

Phat cribs and fatter wallets 153

An urban middle class is born 156

Jobs all around 157

Fat pancakes from the sky: the rich man’s boom 159

So happy together 160

When virtues become flaws 161

“I love you .after you’ve closed on that two-bedroom” 162

On the outside looking in 165

Socialist property rights with Chinese characteristics 167

Revenge of the capitalists 169

No taxation without representation .but with corruption 170

Squeezed 173

Part III Political Scarcity .177

Chapter 7 Ideology: The unbearable lightness of the Yellow River Spirit 179

A young nation-state 182

E pluribus mishmash 185

What comes after a revolution? 189

Forging the Deng Xiaoping consensus 190

New slogans, same consensus 193

The second identity crisis 195

Nationalism to the rescue (sort of) 198

Virtue is as virtuous does 200

Confucius as cultural export 204

Searching for a distinctly Chinese paradigm? 205

Chapter 8 Values: What would Confucius do? 209

Qunar (or where to)? 212

Software upgrades 213

Pursuit of happiness 215

Separate but unequal 219

Governing post-materialist China: The “what have you done for me lately” problem 223